1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for elevating the height of an enclosure cover, such as is commonly used to cover a utility meter housing. Further, this invention relates to an apparatus to assist the irrigation, landscaping and utility industries to maintain access to meters that are buried in the ground.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that many utility companies bury meters in the ground, such as in sod boxes in residential communities, in order to protect such meters from the environment as well as to enhance the aesthetic quality of such communities. However, when the ground that surrounds such meters is landscaped, including the placement of sod and the growing of grass proximal to the meter enclosures, the covers for such enclosures often end up beneath the grade level of the surface and may become tilted or cockeyed. The ground around such meters has a tendency to shift and deteriorate, also causing the meter enclosures to fall below grade level.
A somewhat similar problem exists in a related field, namely the paving industry, where manhole covers need to be raised when new pavement is laid, and various solutions to this problem accordingly have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,898 discloses a rectangular adjustable valve box cover having tapered side walls that may be stacked in order to accommodate different levels of street pavement. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,187,642 discloses a manhole extender ring system that includes a base ring to which additional extender rings may be attached in order to elevate a cast iron manhole cover, which system is held together by an adhesive material, such as caulking. Another such apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,568, which describes a device that includes a frame and a spacer ring that is clamped to the frame, such as by screws, in order to raise the level of the man hole cover when asphalt is layered on a road.
A study of such prior art devices readily leads one to the conclusion that many of such devices for the pavement industry are relatively complex, demand extremely heavy duty construction, or require the manufacture a plurality of different structures, which ultimately tend to increase the cost of such apparatus to the end user. Accordingly, there remains a great need in the art to provide an apparatus that will elevate a meter enclosure cover to grade level, which apparatus is not only of relatively simple construction, but also provides a durable and effective way of maintaining efficient access to such in ground meters.